Call of the Wild
by mellowenglishgal
Summary: Clay's lover shows up at Stone Haven, five years after she fled without a word. As Mutts leave bodies tucked in the forest like Easter eggs, rumours reaching them from the other Families about 'breeding dens' and ominous threats and Mutts joining forces, chef Joanna's existence as the first female werewolf is a game-changing revelation. A Clay x OC story.
1. No Choice

**A.N.** : My friend told me about _Bitten_ and I watched the entire first season in a day. And here we are. I don't like whatshername – Elena. I'd be climbing Clay like a tree!

I find the house in the show very cold; near where I live is Lainston House, which is gorgeous, and I took inspiration from it for Stone Haven.

* * *

 **Call of the Wild**

 _01_

 _No Choice_

* * *

Scarlet and ochre teased the edges of leaves in a riotous warning of colour signalling the coming of autumn – the woods were being set on fire by the changing seasons, the colours vibrant and awing against the lush dappled greenery all around her, as if the sun herself had traced her fingers over the leaves. She had never seen so much lush greenery – she had grown up predominantly on the West Coast and the desert, and there was _nothing_ like this endless expanse of gorgeous forest, at least not in her experience. And she could taste the difference between an East Coast forest and the burned-out woods of California. Sequoia, Yosemite were the forests of her childhood, and the West Coast sunshine was harsher and dryer than New York State; the air tasted gorgeous here.

Through the open window she could smell yesterday's rain, a crisp wind, the sun-warmed moss, and the delicate dog-violets half-buried in decaying leaves, a sweet tease of honeysuckle and ripe plums. She could smell wood-smoke and, oddly, turpentine. Otherwise, the air was _pure_.

Despite her anxiousness, she felt like she could fill her lungs to capacity for the first time in months. Pure, crisp air, sharp, full of moisture and gentle warmth and growing, green things. Unpolluted. Her nose twitched, itchy, wanting to go out and explore every scent; she had _never_ been curious about the outdoors before. Her dad used to tease that she was a pampered house-pet; he heard the call of the wild and answered without hesitation.

Pain ripped through her chest, and she gasped softly, wincing, kneading the palm of her hand between her breasts. She had taken her bra off hours ago, aggravated by the underwire digging into her ribs. She hated them – and she'd have to take it off soon anyway. She inhaled deeply, almost unconscious of it, as her mind filtered through the information her nose brought her.

She could smell werewolves.

A lot of them.

She hadn't been expecting that – had been dreading the possibility, but hadn't given it too much thought, or she'd lose her nerve. The Pack were known to live separately except in extenuating circumstances, but unlike Mutts, they were free to claim territory. To lay foundations, and from the look of Stone Haven, they had dug deep and laid very strong ones. Stone Haven was the kind of house that outlasted even the extended lifetimes of generations of werewolves. There was a lot of history within those walls; the future of the werewolves depended on the men who lived there.

Her future depended on them.

Depended on _him_.

She never thought she'd ever see him again. She had never thought of herself as a masochist until she had left him. And again, now, seeking him out. Leaving him was her choice, made out of grief and heartbreak and betrayal and sheer terror – she had fallen too hard and far too fast, hadn't even realised the implications of what she was getting into. And with whom she was getting into it with. How could she – it was against Pack law to let a human live if they ever found out. It was _the_ law of the Pack, the very first – the secrecy of the werewolf race must be upheld at all costs. Semi-automatics and scientists were a lot more terrifying than angry villagers and pitchforks, but the threat had always been the same. Being hunted.

A frisson of terror shivered through her, and she had to swallow the lump in her chest as she eyed the insignia carved into the gateway columns marking the perimeter of the Danvers' territory. She took a deep breath and hoped. Danvers. She'd hoped never to have to hear that name again – didn't mean it didn't whisper itself across her memory in that delicious place between sleep and awake, when she could still remember dreaming. The place where there was no Pack, no Mutts, no law and no reason for her to flee the only…

Here she was. Years later, she was staring down the barrel of a gun she had locked and loaded herself. Whatever she found over that threshold was of her own making.

She just hoped that…he'd understand _why_. Now that everything had changed…she could explain.

Would they let her?

She was going to be asking them all a lot – more than anyone could ever ask of family, let alone a stranger, and it made her stomach hurt to come here, after what she had done, asking…for help. She had been self-sufficient to ironically an almost damaging degree – she found it nearly impossible to concede that she couldn't handle everything. Why would he want to grant her any favours, after the way she'd treated him? Her chest felt like a gaping chasm, raw and aching and burning as if lava constantly ate at the edges of the wound. Dread, shame, guilt, curiosity and, worse, anticipation, burned inside her chest and she had to focus to swallow it all down. She couldn't appear as anything but calm and in control – even though she was far from it. She was terrified.

But she was here. And there was nothing else she could do now; her future was in their hands. Either she made a U-turn and just never stopped moving, dreading the future, or she could continue up to the Elizabethan redbrick mansion, and face the ghosts inside. Idling at the front gate, she licked her lips, her fingers shaking with nerves as she reached up to adjust the rear-view mirror, her anxiousness easing as a little face appeared, sleepy dark eyes focused on his Baby. She sighed and frowned at how tall he now was in his car-seat. He'd already outgrown it; she'd have to buy a new one. Just another thing on the list of things she was struggling to provide for him.

He was the reason she was here. He was worth every risk.

If not for him she'd never have come here, never have sought out this place, that man ever again. Too painful. She hated that flutter of anticipation at the thought of seeing him again for the first time in years – hated that she had lived alone since leaving him; hated that he had taken their future.

There was only one reason she was here.

But it didn't mean she didn't have to fight the urge to take that U-turn. Her battered old powder-blue _Jeep_ crawled through a set of redbrick gateposts overgrown with ivy and honeysuckle – ageless sentries posted directly in front of the symmetrical house, redbrick walls winding their way around the sprawling additions to the main house, trimmed with deep flowerbeds. The main house and gardens were protected by the redbrick wall; the five hundred acres of forests owned by the Danvers for generations were protected by the reputation of the people who lived in this beautiful house, by ghost stories and Chinese whispers. She drove through the redbrick gateposts, into a wide courtyard with a perfectly circular green lawn in the centre. The perfect place to take that U-turn. She could just circle the drive and keep going.

Only, she couldn't. She was struck by the beauty of the house, symmetrical, three-storeyed with enormous windows trimmed in white. She half-expected Elizabeth Bennett to traipse out with her muddy petticoats, Darcy pining after her from an upstairs window. Beautiful. A beautiful, historical home, European – _English_ – in design and attitude behind the construction: the redbrick had been meant to last. And because this was New York, not California with its earthquakes or the South with hurricanes, it had. She brought the _Jeep_ to a careful stop in front of the house, behind a _Land Rover_.

Daunting wasn't the word. She licked her lips, carefully applying the handbrake, practically hearing the car groan from exhaustion and relief, and flipped the visor to check the mirror. She had stopped downtown in Bear Valley to freshen up, change her outfit, eat her body-weight in protein and change Fletcher, and now checked her appearance. Anxious. Tired, beneath the light touches of cosmetics. She sighed, knowing there wasn't much that would change the dark circles under her eyes unless she got out of the car and rang the doorbell. She flipped the visor back up and unbuckled, climbing out of the car. The cold breeze sluiced over her bare arms, but her little dumpling warmed her up as she lifted him out of his seat. He'd been in his car-seat nearly all day and he had been grizzling his objections at being stuck back in it after stopping at the diner. Usually he was the sweetest baby boy in the world, always smiling. They were both tired; and he picked up on her nerves. Yawning, threatening to drop his pacifier on the gravel, she popped it back into his mouth, shouldered her purse and eyed the house before hesitantly approaching. Fletcher sighed and settled against her, familiar against her chest, grabbing for her mouth, his most recent discovery, tangling his tiny dimpled fingers in her long hair.

They would have heard her car approaching, of course; it didn't take long for a werewolf to answer their door – unless of course they didn't _want_ to answer. Hopefully she'd at least get across the threshold. Maybe. Unless _he_ answered. She had no idea how he would react – the man she remembered, the werewolf he was beneath the façade.

Nerves ate at her, boiling in her belly like too much merlot on an empty stomach. She hitched Fletcher higher on her hip and pressed the doorbell, listening to the sound echo with a metallic taste off the walls and soft-furnishings. She had never made it as far as Stone Haven, though she'd heard about it in great detail. She wondered if his artefacts were littered around the house; if the others knew who she was. She dreaded them knowing who she was. And the idea of them _not_ knowing who she was hurt worse than that dread. Because if they didn't know, she hadn't meant to him what he still meant to her.

She leaned down to press a kiss against the soft dark down on Fletcher's head, closing her eyes to focus on _listening_. As a kid she had always wondered how Dad could hear her unwrapping a _Charleston_ _Chew_ while she hid in her closet: now, she could hear dormice scurrying through the undergrowth, the chirp of blackbirds in the hedgerows, the rustle of the wind through the leaves, the hum of electricity, the static sound of a radio turned low and the rich timbre of masculine voices, six of them. That matched up to the different scents teasing her nose. Of all of her senses, she'd really noticed a change in her sense of smell – everything was dialled up to eleven-million but it was scents that tickled her nose wherever she went.

She focused on the delicate scent of the lavender _Johnson's_ baby-shampoo she used every evening to bathe Fletcher, the herbs in the planters. She listened, heard the men's voices grow softer and drop off, footsteps, and opened her eyes to see a shadow flicker beyond the frosted-glass of the front-door, before it opened.

Her heart seized. She should have known…of course _he'd_ open the door.

The one person she'd dreaded ever seeing again – and the one man into whose arms she would always run.

She had always known that; and she hated that fact.

Sultry hazel eyes locked on hers, angry – dangerous.

She could taste his anger, and his shock.

" _Joanna_."

* * *

 **A.N.** : I loved the flashbacks to when Clay first met/fell in love with Elena, you can really see how their personalities have changed in the four years since. I love the shy man Clay was, as much as I love the tormented man he reveals himself to be.


	2. Unexpected Guest

**A.N.** : Hi guys, so Hayley Atwell ( _Agent Carter_ ) is the inspiration for Joanna's looks (and a little of Peggy Carter's personality, too – tough, no-nonsense but kind).

This chapter is dedicated to my first two reviewers, _FollowTheSun22_ and _skidney_. Thank you!

* * *

 **Call of the Wild**

 _02_

 _Unexpected Guest_

* * *

She stood on the porch, breath-taking in a flowing green dress and a baby boy clamped to her hip. Her hair was long now, past her shoulders, but still glossy like molasses, her warm dark eyes, tilted slightly up at the corners exotically, were framed with fine dark lashes, and were staring back at him as if he were Medusa, freezing her in place. Her eyes had always glittered with amusement as she'd teased and flirted with him, making him blush, perfectly comfortable in her own skin – in her own self. There had always been a challenge glittering in her eyes, a sweetness. They had always reminded him of chained Dobermanns – beautiful, deeply loyal, and perfectly capable of ripping your throat out.

Where he was concerned she'd aimed a little lower, but done just as much damage. He'd never thought he would ever see her again, in person. She haunted him, more than any of the Mutts ever had. She was the only one who had ever chased them away, the memories, the nightmares; tucked up against him, her warmth and scent had soothed him, had gentled him, giving him _peace_. A peace he'd had no idea existed, let alone he could experience.

Joanna.

Classically beautiful with a full hourglass figure. Stern and kind. Devastating.

On his doorstep.

With a baby.

He could sense the others behind him, perhaps Pete and Nicky could scent her – visitors were rare; no-one from Bear Valley ever dared come calling, not even idiot kids wanting to goad the recluse out of the house. Only unless invited, under dire circumstances, or to challenge the Alpha, did other werewolves come to Stone Haven.

The ghost that haunted him and chased away his worst nightmares stood on his porch with a baby on her hip. It had been years since he had seen her; he accepted in an instant the baby wasn't, _couldn't_ be his, but it felt like an elephant had rammed into his gut. If she'd ever become pregnant, he thought mournfully, he'd never have known it before she ran.

There was something different about her scent, though, as much as her haircut was different. The wind shifted subtly, and he caught another scent – the baby. Werewolf. It was unmistakeable.

And it almost sent him reeling.

He hadn't been prepared for this, this sucker-punch right to his gut. He had dealt with a lot in his life but anticipating he'd ever see Joanna again… He'd never have bet on that. And showing up on his doorstep, years after she had run out on him, with a werewolf baby on her hip? Showing up _here_ , in Stone Haven?

"Clay, who is it?" a gentle voice asked, and he swallowed, hard, his entire body wired. Breath couldn't quite reach his lungs, his limbs felt too light and uncontrollable. He stared at Joanna, memorising how her features had matured in the years since he had seen her. They'd met when she was a student, working on a double Masters at Duke, the definition of a knockout with the world on its knees before her. Brilliant, flirty and fierce. She had a sharp tongue and a huge heart, always in a good mood. She'd kept him on his toes; made him _laugh_ ; shamelessly flirted with him to delight in his blushes; fed and fucked him – the two basest urges in any creature, to eat and procreate. She was glorious at both.

Memories of fucking her still brought him to orgasm.

His mind, his body, had never let him forget her.

He'd wondered whether she ever thought about him, what they had – what she'd fled from – and here was the proof: she had. Otherwise she wouldn't be here.

She swallowed, swiped the tip of her tongue across her lip and bit it delicately in that single, tiny nervous tell she had, and her body relaxed slightly. She kept her eyes focused on his, and he noticed how suddenly tired she looked – he scented her anxiousness, the tension radiating through her body, her… _terror_. And that scent raised his hackles and settled heavily in the pit of his stomach – she felt she was in _danger_. From him?

"Hello, Clay," she half-whispered, something like…apology pouring from her expression. Grief, sincerity. _Regret_. A hand on his shoulder made him jump, bristling; Jeremy's gloomy blue eyes centred him, the gentle pressure of his hand brought him back to himself, and he glanced back at Joanna. The baby boy in her arms squirmed, gazing at them as if assessing, who were these strange men? Dark eyes like hers, with the same fine dark lashes he remembered fluttering over a delicate dusting of freckles just under her eyes where a flush always rose as she orgasmed, fine lashes that knit together like lace whenever she cried at a brutal death on a television-show, lashes she peered out from under when she was being sly and flirtatious, coaxing a blush from him. A tiny hand had gripped the neck of her precariously low-cut dress, tangled into her longer hair. She used to style it into beautiful vintage-style curls, teasing her jaw. He remembered those curls bouncing. Now she shifted the baby on her hip, gently prising his fingers from her hair as she swept it over her shoulder. She glanced from the baby to Clay. Her eyes flicked past him, to Jeremy.

She cleared her throat, addressing Jeremy politely, "Mr Danvers, I'm sorry to show up here unannounced… My name is Joanna Kendall…may I come in?"

"Of course… I don't believe I've had the pleasure," Jeremy said, smiling gently, but it didn't reach his eyes. Hers, so dark and clever, lanced to his face, and she sighed shortly.

"If Clay ever told you anything, I'm sure you're not pleased to see me," she said in a quiet, grim voice, gentle with that stern bite of don't-bullshit-me he'd loved as much as her ability to flirt playfully and dive into the deep stuff in the same moment, with so much grace. Jeremy's eyes softened, and his smile twitched into something dangerous enough to let her know he'd been told everything she dreaded.

"Irrespective, here you are," Jeremy said, smiling graciously, gesturing her into the foyer. "Please, come in. Would you like some tea? I hear you were the one to finally turn Clay to loose-leaf. He resisted me for years."

"Thank you," Joanna said, and Clay sensed her nervousness as she stepped inside, her dark eyes flitting around the foyer at the artefacts he had collected over the years, the old photographs – not a single woman in any one of them – the muted colours and masculine memorabilia of old-money bachelors, maybe remembering every single detail from the description Clay had given her years ago. Things had altered, though; Jeremy was notorious for _adjusting_ things in the house, sometimes Clay would wake to an entirely different home. Jeremy's eyes lit up at the sight of the baby on her hip, his smile was genuine as he reached out to offer a finger to the little boy, who eyed it curiously, glancing at Joanna, then shyly back at Jeremy before grasping it tight, his eyes crinkling at the corners in a smile hidden by his pacifier. They hadn't had a baby at Stone Haven in _years_ ; he had grown up with Nicky being the baby in the house. Logan had joined their family as a teenager. But he saw genuine joy in Jeremy's eyes, knew he had picked up the scent too.

The woman who had turned Clay's entire world upside down had brought a baby werewolf to their home.

"Hello," Jeremy cooed, smiling brightly at the baby, who swung his leg and gazed unblinkingly back at him.

"Guys, who's at the door –?" Pete strode into the foyer, and his grin only faltered for a second at the sight of Joanna, before his eyes fell on the baby and his eyes glowed. "Who's this handsome little guy? Oh, he beats Nick off the top Chick Magnet spot!"

"His name is Fletcher," Joanna said softly, and baby Fletcher turned his gaze to her face at the sound of her voice, or his name. She looked… _sad_. As if her heart was breaking in front of them. She had brought a werewolf baby to Stone Haven. The implications sent his mind spinning, and Clay tore his gaze from her long enough to glance at Jeremy, who had been watching him; they shared a look, he shook his head once, subtly, and glanced back at her, as she murmured, her eyes sorrowful as she gazed at the baby, "He's my brother." Clay stared at her, perplexed; he shared a look with Jeremy as Pete asked if he could cuddle the baby.

"He might be a bit grizzly, we've been in the car all day," she warned, as she transferred the baby into Pete's waiting arms. For a second, the baby looked perplexed, as if asking, _Well, who the hell are you?!_ before he kicked his legs experimentally and poked a finger gently at the embellishments on Pete's jacket, a hand trying to grab his ruddy beard, tiny fingers seeking in his mouth. Pete just laughed, pretending to bite his tiny fingers, making growling noises, and the pacifier dropped as baby Fletcher let out a soft chuckle, eyes crinkled with delight. Clay bent and picked up the pacifier, feeling like someone had taken a white-hot poker and scrambled his intestines with it as he straightened and offered the pacifier back to Joanna.

Those flashing dark eyes and pretty lips, she was even more beautiful than he remembered. The green dress brushed her toes and showed clearly that she wasn't wearing a bra, and he had to force himself to keep his gaze on her face, despite the temptation of that traffic-stopping cleavage. She swallowed and her eyelashes fluttered as she took the pacifier back, barely grazing his hand with her fingertips, as a gentle blush crept up her cheeks; but he could scent her anxiety, and her heartbeat thrummed too quickly. He'd never known her to be tense about anything, the most relaxed, cheerful person he had ever met, quietly self-assured and encouraging. Pete bounced the baby in his arms, laughing happily, and good-natured Pete led the way into the living-room, offering a seat to Joanna after re-introducing himself. He and Nick had been with Clay the first time he had ever met Joanna.

And he couldn't remember feeling like this since that first afternoon. The scrambling of his intestines, his breathless nerves. Awed and speechless.

The rage and despair and loneliness he had struggled against for years, ever since she left, seemed to evaporate. He filled his lungs for the first time in years, hiding how his hands shook.

" _That is a minefield you do not know how to navigate_ ," Nick had warned him, grinning, after Pete had teased him for blushing. He couldn't help it; even then, he'd known she was a force of nature. She'd taken Nick in her stride, and any hot-blooded woman who could do that was something magnificent – and rare. Rarer still that her dark eyes had focused on _him_ , rather than pretty Nicholas.

The others appeared, most likely having taken the time to lock up the cellar just in case, and Clay took a position by the window, out of her eyesight as Pete grinned and introduced Antonio, Nick and Logan. It was strange, seeing Pete with a baby – stranger still that he was so natural with the kid. Clay stayed at Joanna's back and listened to her heartbeat, scented her dread, noticed the tension in her usually lush body, trying to work out why her scent had changed. She wasn't pregnant – he'd scent it on her.

Jeremy disappeared to prepare tea, returning with a tray laden with cups and saucers, plates and thick slices of fresh bread, butter and jam. They weren't used to company but they did entertain – each other. At the heart of any gathering was food. And Jeremy knew through Clay that Joanna's appetite had always been voracious. He didn't have a single memory of Joanna without food in it; to her, the very definition of joy was sharing a meal.

"You've come quite a way," Jeremy said, with an attempt at a smile. "I believe Clay mentioned you're a California native."

"Most of my childhood was spent on the West Coast, although I lived in England when I was a teenager," Joanna said, her accent flavoured with a soft bite that came from her time in England. Next to Clay's Southern drawl, she had always sounded particularly sharp and elegant.

"And you attended university at Duke," Jeremy prompted, his eyes still sombre and guarded. "Where did you go from there?"

"Lots of places. I settled in New York City for a little while, my first job after school. I got bored and packed it all in to move to Paris and study pâtisserie, then Tuscany, Kerala. I was in London until recently."

"What drew you to the middle-of-nowhere in New York State?" Jeremy asked, his smile a challenge. Joanna sighed softly, her gaze on the baby boy still infatuated with Pete's jacket and scratchy beard.

"I know you can smell what Fletcher is," she said softly, and the tension in the room became palpable, alarm making Nick's eyes grow, Antonio glancing sharply at Jeremy, even Pete's warm brown eyes settling uncertainly on Clay as he felt himself tense. "Rather, what he will be." Jeremy's eyes flitted to Clay, who shook his head sharply, alarm and dread coiling in a nasty churning sensation in his stomach. "And don't look at Clay like that; he never told me a thing."

Clay started, his eyes shooting to Jeremy. Alluding that she knew they could scent that the baby was a werewolf, telling Jeremy off for glaring subtly at Clay; telling them Clay had never breathed a word – of what he was. Of what _they_ were. Reading the accusation and threat in Jeremy's expression, setting him straight. How did she know?

And when had she discovered his secret?

 _When she left you_ , a voice said quietly inside his mind.

Dread curled in his stomach, knowing exactly what it meant that Joanna had come to Stone Haven, alluding to the fact someone – _not_ Clay – had told her the secret. Knowing exactly what the look on Jeremy's face meant as his sombre eyes flicked to Clay. The fact that she had seen it, understood their dynamic, knew the significance of that look.

They could not risk a human knowing of their existence. It was the greatest law of the Pack.

And Clay was the one who enforced the Pack's laws. Brutally.

Joanna sighed heavily, reaching out to take the baby's hand, rubbing her thumb against his tiny fingers. "Our father's name is John Fletcher."

John Fletcher. Clay glanced from Jeremy to Antonio as they exchanged a look. John Fletcher had grown up with them, had been Pack, from a long line of Pack werewolves, even historic Alphas; if Jeremy respected any Mutt, it was John Fletcher. What was rare was that Clay had never had dealings with him. John Fletcher. It was a name from Jeremy's past and the recent history of the Pack, but the fact Clay had no personal connection to the Mutt made him an extraordinary phenomenon. What made Jeremy and Antonio suddenly uneasy was the Pack history. Joanna was John Fletcher's child. Clay had heard the story, John Fletcher breaking his loyalty to the Pack – and why. He'd had no idea – no idea that the single degree of separation between Clay and a Mutt was his very human daughter, the woman he was still in love with.

"John sent you to us?" Jeremy asked in his usual calm, polite tone. He wasn't Alpha for no reason. If John Fletcher had sent Joanna to Stone Haven with her infant werewolf brother…

"No," Joanna said slowly. She glanced over her shoulder at Clay. "My dad is dead." A tremor shivered through Clay, lips parting as he started – he knew just how much Joanna adored her father. She had grown up motherless; her father was the light of her life. He remembered how her face lit up with joy at the sound of her personalised ringtone announcing her father's phone-calls; he was her best-friend, her confidante, her sweet superhero.

He was a Mutt.

He had told her the secret no werewolf risked telling anyone. Especially not their loved-ones.

Being told the truth of their existence was a death-sentence.

Surely he'd learned from experience?

John Fletcher might as well have killed Joanna himself.

"John is dead?" Antonio asked, and Clay thought he saw a flicker of grief pass over his features. Clay's Pack brothers were as familiar to him as his reflection; for thirty years he had been surrounded by Antonio, by Pete and Nick, and then Logan. Jeremy had found him in the swamps of Louisiana and coaxed the feral werewolf-boy to domesticity – or at least the illusion of it. He had never met John Fletcher, which, as Enforcer to the North American Pack, meant he had either not been a threat or been so dangerous in his cleverness that no-one had any idea he even was a danger to them. And that rankled; it was Clay's job to protect the Pack. Protect Jeremy. And he had had no idea that a Mutt had told their secret to the woman he was in love with.

She had left without explanation, without apology or goodbye. One afternoon, she had just been _gone_. And Jeremy had forbidden him from tracking her down; he hated to see his son's grief but he couldn't afford to let Clay disappear on the Pack, especially then. He was too valuable to them; and women by necessity were not permanent fixtures of a werewolf's life. Joanna had abandoned him; he had been forced to let her go, though every instinct screamed for him to chase after her.

And the fact that she knew – the idea that he would have to – It was unthinkable. Everything he did for the Pack, he did without question, without emotion. It was his job; he protected the Pack. He protected Jeremy. It was necessary; he wasn't squeamish. But the idea of – he couldn't even think it without his stomach churning with nausea, every instinct screaming against the unnatural thought.

"John is dead," Joanna said, her voice emotionless. She let out a deep sigh. As she climbed heavily from the sofa, as if exhausted, she said, "And before you sanction my execution, there's something else." She reached up, unpinning her earrings, and placed them carefully on the coffee-table with her bracelets, her leather-strapped watch and several rings – a gold trinity ring, a pale sapphire-set Art Deco halo engagement-ring, a dainty signet ring, a deep red-gold band, her mother's, and a slim, plain golden band. Clay's eyes rested for a moment on that plain gold band. The inside was engraved – like a poesy ring. A hidden promise. She had adored the history of it. His own ring scorched on his finger, awareness of it heightened, stunning, after having worn it for so long that he only noticed he wore it when it was missing. She still wore her ring. The ring _he_ had given her.

Divested of her jewellery, she sighed, and it looked like it cost her great effort to reach back and undo the zip of her dress, the patterned forest-green fabric billowing at her feet as she let it slip from her shoulders, unveiling her in all her naked glory. She hated bras, and around him she had never worn underwear.

For a split-second, as she fell to her hands and knees, he had no idea what was going on. Coming to Stone Haven with a werewolf baby and stripping in front of the Pack? She had always had a gorgeous body; full hips, a nipped-in waistline and beautiful full breasts, slim shoulders and elegant arms, pretty legs, but even her curves weren't enough to keep her alive.

And then she Changed.

* * *

 **A.N.** : I've just read _Bitten_ by Kelley Armstrong – it wasn't what I was expecting; I'm glad they had her co-produce and have input into the script etc. because I feel the writers enhanced what she had created with her story. I still don't like Elena – the way she is written, her characterisation etc., not the actress. Though I'm not fussed with her, either. There wasn't much chemistry between her and the actor who plays Clay.


	3. Metamorphosis

**A.N.** : I have created a _Pinterest_ board for this story named 'Bitten – Call of the Wild' so it's easy to find, if anyone's interested.

* * *

 **Call of the Wild**

 _03_

 _Metamorphosis_

* * *

With a breathless cry of pure agony, she completed the transition right before their eyes.

A wolf sat up by the sofa, panting with exertion. She shook herself from the tip of her dark wet nose to her thick bushy tail and licked her chops, lifting her nose to scent the air.

She was stunning. Large, due to Joanna's own height and figure, with a thick, fluffy coat of lustrous chocolate-brown fur tipped with gold and copper. Sharp claws, even sharper fangs, ears that perked up, twitching as she listened, and a beautiful face, clever and serene, from which deep chocolate-brown eyes glowed, the only thing that showed this was no ordinary wolf; those were Joanna's eyes, the colour, the expression.

His senses, which had told him her scent had changed, had been confused by what she was. The sheer impossibility of it had ensured his mind had never even considered the idea. His brain had ignored his instincts.

The baby cooed, grinning, and Joanna's ears twitched, turning, watching the baby in Pete's lap. Pete's jaw hung open, his eyes the size of Jeremy's teacup saucers. She stared clearly at Pete for a few seconds, as the baby fidgeted toward her, then pointed her muzzle at the floor; Pete shook off his shock and did as he was told, settling the baby on the rug. She sniffed at the baby, as he gurgled and reached for her thick pelt, and the baby chuckled and cooed as she licked his ears and neck delicately, tickling him and making his little face crease with delight. The baby wasn't afraid; this was familiar to him. The wolf was familiar to him. She wound herself around him snugly, curling up around him. The baby yawned, smiled, and face-planted against her side, tiny fingers latching onto her thick fur, settling in, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to cuddle up with a werewolf. He was surrounded by her heat, her scent, the sound of her heart beating, her entire body protecting him. He knew he was safe there.

The way Joanna had curled around the baby, she lay with her head propped on her paws, facing Jeremy. Her dark eyes rested on his face, a silent challenge. Her back was to Clay, as if she knew instinctively that there was no threat from him, that she did not have to watch her back.

No-one spoke. The shock was too great. Clay stared. She hadn't shown any self-consciousness about Changing in front of them – as a rule the Pack went off alone to Change, something Clay had never understood; the distorted, grotesque state between human and wolf was as much a natural part of who and what they were as their human and wolf forms. He couldn't remember being human, not the way Nick had been raised in their world, going through his first Change in late-adolescence; Clay had been perhaps seven when Jeremy had found him, feral, half-boy half-werewolf, abandoned in the bayou, more wolf than any of them had ever been, driven purely by instinct. Being bitten so young, he had had no idea what he was, and he had had to learn how to be human. Part of that was learning, but still not fully understanding, the human emotions such as embarrassment. He had a good handle on regret.

He stared at the large wolf curled up with the baby, who had cuddled into her contentedly, sensing the moods of the others without having to look at them. Shock was pervasive. Curiosity and delight radiated from Nick; confusion from Logan; he felt Pete's eyes on him, burning like a brand, but refused to meet his eye. The impression he got from Jeremy was – _wonder_. The first – _only_ – female werewolf, in _his_ territory. She had come to _his_ Pack.

There had never been confirmed existence of a female werewolf, not in all the histories preserved through the generations.

There were no hereditary female werewolves, nor did women historically survive the bite. They had no idea why. There was speculation, that a woman's body was not strong enough to handle the Change. For whatever reason, there had never, to the best of anyone's knowledge, been a female werewolf. The first would have had lasting implications that resonated throughout their history; now Joanna curled before them, a wolf, her very existence altering their futures irrevocably.

A Mutt had murdered a woman on their doorstep, the first flagrant display of disrespect, of a challenge against Jeremy's Alpha status, a threat, goading them to action, in nearly two decades; now Joanna appeared, out of nowhere, without warning, five years after disappearing from his life, a werewolf. The only confirmed female werewolf in their written history.

What the hell was going on?

He stood, slack-jawed, staring at Joanna, absolutely in awe.

She was a werewolf.

Joanna was a werewolf.

Whoever had bitten her, she had survived it. Was thriving. Had brought an infant werewolf to Stone Haven. To the Pack.

Her father, a Mutt who had once been a loyal, beloved brother of the Pack, had told her enough that she knew to seek them out at Stone Haven, that she could Change in front of any man who lived there without fear.

She knew enough to reassure Jeremy that Clay hadn't betrayed their secret to her.

She knew what they were. Had she known all this time what Clay was?

"I'll pour drinks," Antonio murmured, looking dazed, and Pete glanced over, as if for the first time in twelve years the shock of _this_ definitely excused breaking his sobriety. But he didn't ask for a whisky, and Antonio didn't pour him a finger; Clay downed his in one, breathless in his shock, his fingers trembling. He raked his hair back from his face, his thoughts merely snatches of images – of the Joanna he had been pining for all these years, of her Change.

To find Joanna Kendall on his doorstep after five years was one thing. To have her walk back into his life a werewolf?

It changed _everything_.

And maybe it explained a few things – to them _both_.

Why she had fled; and why he hadn't given chase.

When the baby started to get agitated, fidgeting, a flush in his cheeks, too warm wrapped in Joanna's fur, Joanna sighed, a low thrumming in her throat, not a growl, almost a purr, and uncurled from around the little boy. She licked his ears and neck again, making the baby grin and gurgle, reaching tiny fingers to her muzzle to press sloppy kisses to her head when she lowered it, and stepped back. She glanced from the baby to Pete, turned, and her claws clacked softly against the parquet floor as she approached Clay. He slowly offered his hand to her; she sniffed his fingers, licking them with a hot, wet tongue, and he slowly squatted down in front of her, shocked and awed. Entranced by the beauty of Joanna's new form; she truly was a stunning wolf, all grace and power.

"Hey, darlin'," he rumbled softly, blocking out the others, so that it was just the two of them. The wolf settled back, staring at him with deep brown eyes, Joanna's eyes. Her body shook, and as the others sipped or downed more whisky, she Changed.

On her hands and knees, she reappeared in the lush human form Clay knew every inch of. Panting, her entire body shaking, sweat beading her skin that radiated heat, her shining hair tousled, grief and exhaustion etched into the planes and lines of her beautiful face, her skin wan and pale, an unnatural flush of colour spotting her cheeks, purplish bruising under her eyes. Exhausted, physically pushed to endure the very worst, unimaginable physical torment, emotionally overwrought, and her lower lip trembled as she lurched onto her bottom, panting, her dark eyes bright and glittering with tears.

Panting, she gazed at Clay, her expression a mixture of silent beseeching and pure misery, letting him see what he believed she had never showed anyone; vulnerability.

Joanna's naked body shook with exhaustion and the fever of her Change, the same heat that kept them warm, alive, when they passed out naked in the forests after every run. Those dark circles beneath her eyes smudged with tears that fell unconsciously, unable to contain her emotions after the strain of her Change.

That vulnerability, her palpable dread and terror, her grief, her anger, made his stomach hurt. This was _despair_ – this was how he had felt for the last five years, unable to lash out sufficiently or verbalise everything he was feeling; it poured out of him only when he ran. And like him, the Change had left Joanna to the mercy of her own raw, confused emotions. This was fear, and anguish, and confusion, heightened by her werewolf nature, the need to Change, and run, the rage and bliss that accompanied each hunt.

He had no idea what it had cost her to come here. To face him again, after five years, after running out on him, taking with her the dream of a life they might have had together, the children, the family that might have been theirs. His. He had no idea what her life had been like since she disappeared, but confronted with the impossible, she had run to him.

Her sweaty, tear-streaked face rose to meet his, dark eyes shadowed and despairing, her lower-lip trembling, and she croaked a grim, tremulous, " _Help me_?"

It was the first time Clay had ever known her to ask for help – the most self-sufficient, charismatic, enterprising and generous person he had ever met. What she attempted, she conquered – apparently that meant beating the catastrophic odds of surviving the werewolf bite, too.

Nick tripped forward with her green dress, which Clay took without breaking eye-contact. He gathered the fabric, draping it over her head; it looked like it cost her to slowly raise her arms, threading them through the little sleeves. Leaning over her, he smoothed the fabric down over her, carefully zipping the dress up her back, untucking her hair over her shoulder. He threaded an arm around her waist, drawing her close.

"I've got you, darlin'," he promised, and she collapsed against him, relief sweeping through her, sweet against his nose, as if, for that moment at least, all the tension that had been coiling her so tightly had evaporated with that simple promise. The same words he used to whisper as he pushed her to her orgasm, letting her ride it to its climax, gentling the crash after the way he knew she loved. She had been worried about his reaction. Her face tucked against his neck, he gently hugged her hot body, tremors lingering from her Change shuddering through her body occasionally, but she gentled, relaxing against him, so much so he thought she might have passed out.

It might have been easier if she had; the Pack could talk through what had just happened without objectifying this stranger, this beautiful woman Clay was still in love with, had never shared with them. They had no idea who she was, not really; only Pete knew just how much she meant to him, even now. But they all knew how much he had changed since she left him. The tension, the rage, his _despair_.

Forgotten, in the face of her Change.

Her being a werewolf changed _everything_.

He had always known it was only ever going to be Joanna. He was hers, utterly.

 _She still wears her ring_ , he thought, a flicker of something in his stomach. Anticipation – more than that. _Hope_. She still wore the ring he had given her when he had asked her to marry him. He hugged her more tightly, trying to pour comfort and security into her by touch, to let her know that in his arms she was as safe as the child she curled herself around, as safe and treasured as she had always been within his arms.

"C'mon," he murmured after a little while, rubbing her back gently, and lifted her from the floor. She moved languorously, the seductive rolling gait of her hips more sluggish from pain and exertion, and she sank into the sofa, pale and trembling occasionally, averting her eyes from the others, her head propped up on her hand, as if it cost her to keep her head up, to stay awake.

"There wouldn't be any more of that whisky left, would there?" she asked quietly, and Antonio's dark eyes twinkled with dark irony as he offered her a finger in a tumbler. "Talisker," she murmured, sniffing the amber liquid, making an appreciative noise before downing it in one.

Clay perched on the edge of the coffee-table in front of her, starting to butter thick slices of bread from the tray Jeremy had brought through, spreading them with jam. She had to be starving. He handed her the plate. "Eat your fill, darlin'." Her eyes were heavy as they rested on his face, grim. Totally uncharacteristic of the Joanna he remembered.

"May I ask – how long since you were bitten?" Jeremy asked, his tone altogether warmer than before. Having this woman turn into a wolf in his study had altered his attitude toward her and her unannounced visit drastically. She tore a chunk of bread away, chewed, swallowed and glanced at Jeremy as he poured her tea. Antonio poured a splash of whisky into her teacup along with it, then his own.

"Five months, one week and four days," Joanna murmured, her eyes bleak, her cheek pouched like a hamster. She swallowed again, attacking the bread. The combination of the tea, whisky, bread and jam, and having shared her secret put a healthier colour in her cheeks, her eyes brightening as the pain and strain of her Change was forgotten. It never lasted long.

"Your – _brother_ – seems very comfortable around you as a wolf," Jeremy observed calmly, as Pete gathered the little boy off the rug, planting him squarely on the leather sofa beside her. He squirmed, saw Joanna beside him, and grinned, then yawned, settling back against the sofa, his dark eyes darting around the room to settle on Clay. He couldn't remember ever even being this close to a baby, let alone having ever held one. If, before he was bitten, he'd ever had younger siblings, he had no memory of them. He had been bitten and Changed so young, he couldn't remember being human.

"He knows both of us," Joanna said quietly, as the little boy rolled to the side, face-planting in her lap without the finesse of being able to crawl properly and pull himself up. She lifted him up, settled him in her lap, and stroked his back as he cuddled up and she demolished the bread and jam.

"Did your father help you through the Change?" Jeremy asked.

Joanna's dark eyes flitted to him. "No." The quiet, stern way she spoke made Clay glance at Jeremy, hearing in her voice that she wouldn't say a word more on the subject.

"It was quite a risk, you bringing Fletcher here," Jeremy said, choosing a different tact.

"I knew you'd smell him out immediately," Joanna said. "I could smell what he was before I even understood it. And you are hardly going to kill the only documented female werewolf."

"How do you know you're alone?"

"My father told me, there are no female werewolves," Joanna said, with that gentle self-assuredness Clay remembered. There was a bite, though; her eyes looked more dangerous than he remembered. The mental stress of turning into a werewolf was more damaging even than the physical toll. The suicide rate amongst newly-bitten werewolves was high, just as the mortality rate of survivors of the bite itself.

"What else did your father tell you?"

"Enough to keep me sane, and knowing what was happening to me," Joanna said gently.

"How long did you know what he was?"

"All my life." Jeremy shifted uncomfortably, his eyes flicking to Clay's for a second.

"You knew about us?" Clay asked quietly, frowning at her. Her face still turned toward Jeremy, Joanna's dark eyes flicked to Clay's face, her neat eyebrows drawing together with a hint of a line between them that he remembered kissing away whenever she was so intensely focused on something that she blocked everything else out – how often had he frightened the life out of her, 'sneaking' into the apartment! Admittedly, he'd loved giving her a good scare, hearing the rush of her blood as her heart thundered in her chest, the way a flush would rise up her cheeks.

"Not about _you_ ," she said carefully, her lips barely moving. He gritted his teeth, flushing under the gentle accusation. She hadn't known who he was – who he _really_ was. So why had she fled?

"John had no business telling you," Jeremy said, his voice sharp.

"Of course he did. John was my only parent; I had to understand, for his safety as much as my own," Joanna said, her voice calm and gentle, the Englishness showing through. _Polite_. "He first Changed in front of me when I was ten, when he thought I was old enough that he could leave me alone in the house overnight so that he could run. He told me everything. Everything that mattered. Anything that might affect me as the daughter of a werewolf who had once been Pack, and was now on his own."

"He endangered your life by telling you."

"It actually strengthened our relationship, having someone who knew his secret; knowing he trusted me with my discretion about it," Joanna said thoughtfully, ignoring the sharp bite in Jeremy's voice that told Clay that if John Fletcher wasn't already dead it would have fallen to him to punish him, regardless of whether Joanna was now one of them.

One of them. A _werewolf_.

"May I ask…" Antonio began, gesturing at Fletcher, cuddled up contentedly against Joanna's ample chest. He looked hesitant for a moment, before giving Joanna an apologetic look and sighing. "Fletcher's mother…?"

"She won't come looking for him," Joanna said quietly, her cheekbones popping as she gritted her teeth, her eyes dulling for a moment, something stark leaching away the warmth, a haunted shiver passing across her face. Clay's senses picked up on the subtle differences from the Joanna he remembered, the tension in her shoulders, the grim concern in her eyes, the cautious, almost skittish look in them. She was under a lot of pressure – nothing she hadn't handled before, but before it had been of her own making, and she had a few healthy outlets to manage the stress; this was different. She was exhausted, tense, afraid, and uncertain. She was deeply unhappy. And she had come and found Clay to ask for help. She met Antonio's eye. "My name is on Fletcher's birth-certificate; it seemed much cleaner to do it that way."

"It will protect the two of you," Antonio nodded. He was Pack fixer; he usually made dead wolves disappear, but he had other talents, too. And he had experience bringing an infant to the Pack, scared and desperate. "And…John?"

"I did what he told me," Joanna murmured, her lips barely moving, a little more colour leaching from her cheeks. She hugged the baby a little tighter, but Clay saw the slight tremor of her hands, heard her heartbeat stutter.

"I don't know what John told you about the Pack, but I'm the one to tie up loose-ends," Antonio said. "If there's anything you need help with…"

"Thank you," Joanna said quietly, nodding. "I appreciate that."

"Where were you living?" Jeremy asked.

"I – I _was_ living in Manhattan; I was visiting in Boston, to be there when Fletcher was born, to help," Joanna said, sighing heavily. Again, that stark, devastated expression flickered across her face. "We've been living in Manhattan since, where I've been working. But that project is finished, now."

"What do you do?" Antonio asked curiously, and Pete caught Clay's eye, his eyes twinkling. Clay glared back, trying not to flush. Clay knew. He hadn't tracked Joanna down in person, had been forbidden from doing so by Jeremy, but technology was a wonderful thing. Especially when Joanna had used her Marketing degree to increase her online presence, using her extroverted charisma to pursue what she wanted out of life, to create opportunities for herself. Recently, it hadn't been hard to find Joanna – her food blog and _YouTube_ channel were saved as favourites on his web-browser.

"I'm a chef and food-writer," Joanna said. When they were together, Joanna had been consumed by researching her double Master's. He had known she was quirky and had a sunny and deeply maternal personality, but he hadn't realised just how bright she was until she became more than just his typist, his friend, first, before she had become his lover. Aside from reading up on all of his research to type his new book, she had been working on intertwining her two theses, History and Marketing, using _food_ , and the socio-economic implications and historical context, development of marketing and advertising to increase demand, how it all had contributed to the creation of new social classes and the development of Marketing as a necessary aspect of commerce. Clay had wondered why she didn't attend a culinary school, do something after university that would allow her to be as clever and creative as she wanted, to do something she enjoyed for a living.

He could've watched her cook for hours, the devotion and passion she poured into everything she cooked. Watching her eat did more for him than any dancer in one of Nick's strip-clubs.

After a few weeks of very professionally typing in Clay's office while he dictated, somehow he had found himself in Joanna's tiny off-campus apartment, utterly relaxed in each other's company, his boots and jacket off, music playing as Joanna danced at the stove, occasionally placing _Bananagram_ tiles on a tray perched precariously on the overflowing coffee-table piled high with textbooks, slices of homemade cake and teacups, while he stirred sauces at the stove and learned how to knead bread dough, watching her, bra-less, her hair pulled up, stretching filo pastry hung all over her apartment, in between violent bursts of typing on his laptop as he dictated, arguing about different points of his research – research she herself became engrossed in, the better to understand what she was typing, and to argue his hypothesis, so that he could better articulate his point. Her apartment had been tiny – for a beast who hated to be caged, he had loved it; he'd wanted to spend all his time there. With her.

"Well, you must have had an exhausting drive," Jeremy said cordially. "Have you made arrangements for accommodation?"

"No. Not yet," Joanna sighed. "That – depends on you."

"How so?"

She sighed heavily. "I have no idea what happens next," Joanna admitted, with a delicate shrug.

"A female werewolf – we're not exactly experts either," Antonio smiled, and it was a warm, genuine smile, the smile Clay knew by heart.

"I – I mean, I don't know what the usual arrangement is when a baby is brought to the Pack," Joanna said, glancing at Antonio and Jeremy. "I know it's a lot to ask, especially as I'm a stranger, but… I don't even _know_ what I'm asking."

It wasn't Clay's place to offer Joanna a place here; as Alpha that was Jeremy's right. But Fletcher was a hereditary werewolf, and their law was absolute about sons being raised by their fathers, by the Pack. Even left on their doorstep with a note, there would have been no question about the baby's place with them. They would have raised him, loved him, and solely to have answers when the growing boy inevitably voiced curiosity about his origins, they might have looked into who had left him at Stone Haven.

Clay had been brought to Stone Haven, after Jeremy spent weeks sitting patiently on a tree-stump in the bayou, earning Clay's trust. Clay was a werewolf, and because of Jeremy's persistence and Herculean kindness, Clay was Pack. Logan had been adopted out of the foster-system, the only thing his father had given him an envelope with two names and two addresses in it – the Sorrentino family, and the Danvers – to be opened on his sixteenth birthday; he had joined the Pack then, without question. He had been surrounded by the love and support and unconditional loyalty of the Pack, learning their ways, prepared for what was to come. Traditionally, Pack members took their infant sons from their mothers, bringing their infant boys to the Pack to raise; that was how Nick had come to be Clay's Pack brother.

The only difference in Fletcher's situation was that the woman raising him, Joanna, had come to Stone Haven with him, a werewolf herself.

The traditional situation for a werewolf infant being brought into the Pack was not going to work here. Joanna was a werewolf; she had every right to their heritage, to their history, and perhaps most importantly, at least for her, to her continued presence in Fletcher's life. Clay thought he still knew Joanna well enough to know there was no way she would just leave the baby on the doorstep; she _adored_ her father. She wasn't going to abandon her brother.

"John practically grew up here; we were all raised as brothers," Jeremy said quietly. "From this moment on, you and Fletcher will always be welcome at Stone Haven. Your…situation is unprecedented in our history. You are a werewolf now. You came to Stone Haven; you have asked for Clay's help. And we will teach you what it means to be a werewolf, what it means to be Pack. And while we do so, you are welcome to stay here, at Stone Haven."

Joanna's lips parted, looking uncomfortable.

"I – that's really not necessary –"

"But it is," Jeremy smiled, in that gentle but firm way he had that told them all, there was no arguing with his decision. "At least until I am certain you have learned enough from us to survive out on your own, it would be prudent for you to reside here at Stone Haven, rather than anywhere in Bear Valley."

"That's…more than I'd ever ask –"

"But you didn't ask," Jeremy smiled. "I offered. There is much we must discuss, not just your Change but the implications to you and Fletcher, especially with what is happening here."

Joanna frowned. "Here? You don't mean the girl who was killed in the woods outside Bear Valley. That wasn't you?!" Tension suddenly radiated from her, dark eyes flashing with intensity.

"No, it wasn't," Clay murmured, catching her eye, his expression grim. It wasn't them, and they had no idea who it was; he didn't recognise the scent, and with teaching at Columbia he hadn't been free to do as much tracking as he might have liked, especially in hindsight. He should have been able to see this coming, to spot the patterns and eradicate the threat before it put Jeremy in discomfort in his own home.

"We will discuss that later," Jeremy said quietly, and Clay glanced at him, his stomach twinging with unease. Joanna's dark eyes flicked from Jeremy to Clay, and that delicate line between her brows reappeared, picking up something. Was it fair to invite Joanna into the Pack, to make her welcome in Stone Haven, when they were under threat? A defenceless infant and a new werewolf.

 _This is Joanna_ , his mind whispered. Joanna. His Joanna. Here. A _werewolf_. Untrained, uneducated in Pack ways, but _here_. She had come all the way to Stone Haven, had asked _him_ for help. She hadn't asked Jeremy – she'd only Changed in front of him; it was Clay she had looked in the eye and asked for help. He could no sooner let her back out that front-door than draw and quarter himself.

"For now," Jeremy said, with a smile. "I'd ask if you'd mind helping prepare dinner," Jeremy half-teased, with a small smile, "my brothers are unfortunately well-acquainted with my lack of culinary skills."

"Careful," Joanna said, her eyes glittering in the first real smile since Clay had opened the door to her. "I'll take over your kitchen."

"I assume you travelled with luggage?" Jeremy smiled. "I'm afraid all but one of the bedrooms is already claimed while my brothers are here; and we've had no need of a nursery for decades, the crib was fifth-generation when Nicholas used it and had to be thrown out."

"Fletcher's still in with me," Joanna said, still looking a little uncomfortable, her eyes on Clay, still frowning. "It's just easier."

"Well, Clay, why don't you go and air out the bedroom – Nicholas, Logan, why don't you help bring Joanna's things inside?" Jeremy suggested.

"We'll start dinner," Pete said, grinning, as Joanna stood, Fletcher cuddled in her arms. He smiled warmly, embracing her in a huge bear-hug, smiling at Fletcher, giving Joanna a big kiss on the cheek and tickling the baby under his chin. He caressed Joanna's face in his hands for a second, smiling as he searched her face. "Welcome."

"Thank you," Joanna said softly, looking startled beneath the shy smile. Clay noticed how tight she held the baby to her chest, as if comforting herself with his nearness.

"Not what you were expecting?" he murmured, and Joanna's dark eyes found his.

"I had no idea what to expect," she said softly, swallowing. "I – I couldn't think about it too hard, or I'd talk myself out of coming here…"

"But you did," he said softly. Her lips parted, and she swallowed, her eyes drinking in his face.

He didn't know what to make of that.

But he had the time to figure it out.

* * *

 **A.N.** : Business as usual, right – woman turns into a werewolf in your study, air out the linens! Hopefully I'm capturing the characterisation of the others, and starting to show the deeply maternal nature of Joanna, at least her bond with Fletcher. I've had a look at the other Otherworld novels by Kelley Armstrong, I don't think I'll be sticking to them.


	4. Any Human Heart

**A.N.** : Another Clay-POV chapter. I love the subtle nuances of Greyston Holt's acting, you always get the sense there's a lot going on behind those sultry tortured eyes of his! I also love the shy, scholarly aspect of Clay's character as much as the brooding, loyal Enforcer, acting out the necessary evils to protect his family, sacrificing Elena's respect and trust in him to give her a better life…

* * *

 **Call of the Wild**

 _04_

 _Any Human Heart_

* * *

He lingered in the dark hallway, drawn to the six-inch wedge of golden light coaxing him to the door stood ajar. The house was quiet, as if still holding its breath after everything that had occurred this afternoon. Joanna Kendall revealing herself before them all in the study – her werewolf form, her father's name, her infant werewolf brother. The quiet was awkward; something had been disturbed in the atmosphere of the house. All of his brothers converging on Stone Haven from different parts of the world always changed the mood in the house, and the tension had risen more than usual because of the threat of this new Mutt, dropping bodies on their doorstep – or at least, their territory. Though he had been away from home for months, teaching, the noises he was used to had changed overnight; it wasn't just him and Jeremy anymore, entrenched in their routines.

And he thought they were all hyper-conscious of Joanna's presence in the only spare bedroom left. A _woman_. He didn't think a woman had ever set foot in Stone Haven.

Clay hesitated at the threshold. If Pete had seen him, he'd have laughed – Clay had never grasped the concepts of modesty and privacy as a child; he had successfully broken every lock in Stone Haven, none of which had ever been replaced. But this was different; Joanna was the only person he had ever met who made him nervous. In his anger and hurt, he had forgotten that.

Part of him wanted to push the door wider, confirm he hadn't dreamed it up, that she really was here. Another part of him wanted to storm in and scream a thousand different things, the same things that swirled like a torrent around his mind, rendering him all but mute. Everything he had been struggling with the last five years was literally physically manifested inside that bedroom. Logan had tried to catch his eye a few times, but he had resisted sitting down with his brother for five years, and he wasn't going to lie on a couch now and pour it all out. Besides, he had always been closer with Pete, who knew a little about temptation, and not giving into it. He knew about rage and frustration and despair, _desire_ , obsession, grief so tangible it knocked him to his knees.

Over the staleness of the disturbed air in the unused bedroom, he could scent the honeysuckle floating in from the windows he had thrown open, and Joanna's scent as she padded barefoot on the parquet floor. Intoxicating. He had always been captivated by her scent, years ago before she had been bitten; now, his senses told him what his mind rebuffed out of pure self-preservation. They were the same. Him and Joanna.

The woman he had recognised by something deep and innate and unquestionable as his mate when she was human…was now a werewolf.

 _She came back_ , his mind whispered.

 _She's different_ , he thought. He had known it the moment he found her on the doorstep, a baby on her hip and the weight of the world on her shoulders. Always joyous, beguiling, vivacious and clever, sexy, unstoppable, eternally cheerful even when she was sad, there was a sombreness to her now that made his nose itch whenever he scented the air and found her exhausted, terrified, angry, desperate scent. She was lost. And he remembered how that felt.

He remembered being alone. Feral and desperate.

She was wounded, emotionally, and his memories of the immaculate woman she had been five years ago propelled him to act, to comfort, to help, to heal. What had happened the last five years – the last five _months_ – to affect such a change in Joanna?

She had become a werewolf.

He couldn't remember being anything else. The others had all been born to it. The psychological damage to a bitten werewolf was well-documented. The suicide rate amongst those who survived the bite was staggering.

His stomach turned at the thought.

He raised a hand to knock on the door – remembering the baby at the last second. He tapped his knuckle softly against the open door and slowly pushed it open, holding his breath. In the dim golden light of a couple table-lamps, the baby slept soundly on a squashy thing that looked like a dog-bed on the floor, as Joanna made up the queen-sized bed. When he'd opened the windows to air the room he hadn't thought to change the sheets. They had been put on clean, but he couldn't remember when that was. A tall wicker laundry-hamper stood overflowing with linens, Joanna digging through them to find the sheets she wanted. Clay cleared his throat gently, sidestepping the baby fast-asleep cuddling a doll and a tiny fluffy chick with a frayed, discoloured blue ribbon around its neck. Joanna's own toy chick from when she was an infant. It used to live on the shelf in Joanna's tiny apartment; her mother had given it to her when she was born.

The lamplight illuminated three mismatched footlockers, a leather suitcase, a vintage tea-chest, equipment cases, framed artwork stacked and propped against the wall and a single cardboard box. His lips twitched, he couldn't help it, when he saw the assortment of potted herbs and flowering cacti, primroses, succulents and Venus fly-traps perched precariously on the open windowsill. One of the tiny terracotta pots was painted like Bowie, one pot was actually a yellow coffee cup with a gun-wielding blue alien wearing a red jumpsuit on it – a character from her favourite _Disney_ movie – and another plant was growing out of a Troll doll's head. So Joanna. The scent of sun-warmed basil and lavender and other herbs tickled his nose, overlaying the dust disturbed by Joanna stripping the bedding. He paused, biting his lip, at the thought that Joanna had packed up everything, even her potted plants, before coming to Stone Haven. She had packed up her life in Manhattan, sure she would not be returning in the near future, even if she had no idea where she would end up. He had seen the newspaper in the foot-well of her _Jeep_ , residences available for rent or sale in Bear Valley circled; she hadn't planned on being invited to stay at Stone Haven.

But she had accepted Jeremy's invitation.

Things truly had to be worse than she let on for Joanna to capitulate without politely pointing out she had made other plans – that she was not totally reliant on their goodwill and generosity. She had been raised to be independent.

He sidled up to her, taking the other end of the fitted sheet, and silently, without being asked, started to help Joanna make the bed. It threw him back to her tiny apartment, warmly-lit and overflowing with books, the scent of meat cooking in rich gravies, the tang of soft fruits and lemon verbena and freshly laundered cotton, the delicate heat of her soft, fragrant skin against his lips. But she was quiet, so unlike the eloquent Joanna of his memory, and couldn't seem to meet his eye. It was the first time, in his memory, that Joanna had ever struggled to find words.

"Never known you to be so nonverbal," he commented softly, as they shook the duvet inside the cover, and draped it over the bed. Joanna glanced at him, swallowed, and started feeding pillows into the cases.

"I suppose I showed you everything important already," she said quietly. "What is there left to say?"

"Everything," Clay said, staring at her. Joanna barely glanced up, but froze, and stuffed the pillows into the cases more firmly.

"Not tonight," she said, barely moving her lips, shaking her head. He relaxed, letting go of the sudden indignation that had wound him up so tight, and sighed, covering the last pillow. He sighed heavily. For five years, he'd wondered how this would go – Joanna, showing up in his life again, or rather, if he'd tracked her down. Watching her cooking videos online was one thing; he enjoyed them. She looked happy, consumed by what she was doing, enjoying every minute of it, passionate and captivated; and he was glad. She had found the thing that she loved and had made a career out of it, bringing enjoyment to every day. But standing in front of her, barely three feet between them, Joanna in her purplish-navy plaid nightshirt and short robe, her hair loose and tousled since her Change, was incredibly _real_. She was here, tucking a familiar hand-crocheted blanket over the end of the bed, a baby snuffling in his sleep behind him on the floor, the house creaking as it settled after the heat of the day, tuning out the sound of Pete's headphones as he listened to music in his room the other side of the house, Logan's voice as he took a call from a client in a tailspin, Nick's low chuckles as he sexted a couple girls he had arrangements with, the low murmuring of Antonio and Jeremy's voice in the study as they shared a whisky and tried to figure out what happened next. Joanna was _here_. She was part of this. Part of his life, now in a very tangible way.

"Jeremy was right – you took a risk coming here," Clay said softly, and Joanna flicked her dark eyes over his face, swallowing, before sidestepping him to bend and carefully gather the sleeping baby in her arms. "But you came back."

"Yes," she said softly. "I came back." He scented her quiet anger, simmering under her skin, rankled by his comment. The risk in her coming here wasn't in being rejected by Jeremy and by extension the Pack; the risk was Clay. Coming into contact with him for the first time in five years, since she had disappeared out of his life without a word, without warning, just the lingering scent of her anger and devastation in her apartment. Leaving him sucker-punched by her loss.

He swallowed at the scent of her anger, turning to hide how quickly he was trying to think, and picked up the squashy baby-bed with the little doll and chick in it. He glanced at Joanna, who indicated the bed with a tilt of her chin, gently rocking the baby. He set the baby-bed down on the far side of the bed where Joanna indicated, closest to the wall, farthest from the door and window – as if she was conscious that anyone coming into the room would have to go through _her_ to get to the baby – and Joanna carefully laid the still-sleeping child down. He didn't even stir.

Joanna straightened up, gazing down at the baby, her expression exhausted and hurt, and he could scent it on the air, sense it from her body-language, from familiarity, that Joanna was barely holding it together. Stress and anger and grief tasted foul against his tongue, Joanna's tension simmering away.

"Did you imagine this?" she half-whispered, sounding wistful and mournful, still gazing at the baby. Clay's stomach clenched. _This_. Her, a baby, in their home?

"All the time," he admitted hoarsely.

Her shoulders drooped slightly, her eyes hardened despite the shine of tears – of frustration and anger; he could scent it – and her lips trembled as she whispered, "Did you imagine stealing him away in the middle of the night?"

There it was.

His heart stuttered, and he stared at Joanna as she watched the baby sleep, her head ducked down, her shoulders drooped in exhaustion. Defeated.

How could he tell her that he had imagined their family thousands of times, children scurrying around at their knees, their laughter reverberating on the air, their warmth, her love, her _smile_ , the children they had made together. The family he never had. How could he tell her that in his mind, they had daughters? Only, ever daughters. There was never any question that Clay could devastate her life, steal her children – that he could _ever_ leave her side. Every instinct he had screamed that she was the one, his everything, his _mate_. In his mind, they would have strong, smiling daughters who wriggled into bed with them in the mornings for cuddles, always grinning; active, happy little dark-eyed girls with her hard-working extroverted charisma and his loyalty and brains. To imagine a son was to invite devastation; how could he ever envision hurting her?

"No," he answered hoarsely. Before meeting Joanna he had never questioned the Pack ruling on fathers raising their sons alone – an absolute rule; but since falling in love with her, the idea of taking her child from her, never seeing her again…

The only thing he had ever felt stronger than his need to protect his Alpha and his Pack was the desire to be with Joanna.

Jeremy would not tolerate an Enforcer who could not commit wholly to his role within the Pack. He could not ignore Clay's pain but he had not tolerated any behaviour that might have endangered the family. And Clay was the Pack's best protector. Everyone knew it, Pack werewolves and Mutts alike.

And he had only become more vicious, more volatile, since Joanna left him.

His stomach churning, staring at Joanna, her downturned face, her tousled hair curling at her neck, the defeated droop to her shoulders, he glanced down at the baby sleeping soundly on the bed.

This was why she had left. She _knew_ – and she had discovered he was part of the same world her father helped hide from the world. Just how much had he told her?

He stared, and reached out a hand to loosely clasp her wrist, but she started, shaking him off, looking like she was barely holding it together. She was the opposite to him; she had a long, very slow-burning fuse. It took a lot to reach the point of ignition, but the littlest thing could trigger the big meltdown once she had reached that point. She took a lot of things on the chin, but after a while they built up, and stress didn't help; he'd seen her reach her limit a couple of times, had caused one meltdown himself, so he recognised the symptoms, the danger. He recognised the razor's edge Joanna was teetering on.

"Joanna…"

"Don't – just because I'm upset doesn't mean I need you to comfort me!" she sniffed, and he watched her physically buckle under the pressures that had built onto her over the last few months.

He swallowed, gazing into her eyes. There was no humour in them, only sadness, exhaustion. She was tired, and miserable. But, pushed to her limit, she had come here. To him. She had sought him out.

Standing there awkwardly, wishing she would let him comfort her, denying his instincts to protect her, even from herself, he waited calmly. "Can I at least…stand here…comfort you that way?"

Buckling under the physical pressure of the stress she was under, her hand shook as she pressed it over her mouth. She had come to him. He would never forget that. Despite – perhaps _in_ spite of what had happened in the past – Joanna had come to him. She had asked for his help. No-one else's – she had sought _him_ out. Whether she was ready to admit it or not, she had come to him for a reason.

She gave in, allowing him to gently coax her to him, wrapping his arms tight around her. And because she was exhausted, and because she needed it, she let him, his lips parting as he tried to find the words. They weren't necessary, not yet; the physical closeness was enough. He was holding her together, physically supporting her. Slowly, she threaded her arms around his waist, relaxing her body into his, her head nestling against his shoulder, her fingertips digging into his back as she clung to him.

"You did all this alone?" he murmured into her shoulder, as she hugged him back tightly. He stroked her hair, holding her tight in his arms, pouring everything he felt she needed into her, strength, security, comfort, the knowledge that she was safe to fall apart in his arms when she needed to, that he would hold her for as long as it took to pull herself back together again.

"I had to," Joanna sniffled miserably, and a smile twitched the corners of Clay's mouth. Of course she had done it alone – there was nothing Joanna Kendall couldn't do when she set her mind to it. Handling the transition into a werewolf was one thing – he had no experience with children, so he could only imagine how difficult it had been for Joanna to raise a baby as well as handle her own trauma. And how had her father died?

"If you don't want to tell me about your father," Clay said softly, "you don't have to. Just…know that when you're ready, you can. I remember how much you adore him." Joanna trembled in his arms, burying her face hard against his shoulder.

"He's dead," she choked. "He's dead – I killed him. I – I killed m-my _dad_!" Her wail of complete despair was cut short as she buried her face in his shoulder. Clay's insides evaporated. She had _killed_ her _father_?

"What?" he murmured.

"He's _dead_. I killed him," Joanna choked tremulously into his t-shirt. She shook in his arms; he could feel the tension and grief radiating from her. It had always been when things finally calmed down that Joanna took a breath and broke. The relief of being accepted at Stone Haven had ushered in that calm; after that relief, she had the luxury of having a meltdown. "I'm a _monster_."

"You're a werewolf, darlin'," he sighed.

"He _bit_ me," she choked, shaking in Clay's arms.

"Your father bit you?" A frisson of white-hot terror shot through him. He had to have heard wrong. She didn't answer, just clung to him. And he let her, holding her tight. Nothing could pull him away from her in that moment. The man she had adored, hero-worshipped, trusted above everyone, had bitten her?

"How could he do that?" Clay breathed, shocked. John Fletcher, a hereditary werewolf raised by the Pack, knew that the bite was a death-sentence to any woman. How could he bite his own daughter? He hugged Joanna tighter. If she had been raised with the knowledge of her father's world, she knew that women did not survive being bitten; she had to know her father had endangered her life when he bit her. She knew that her existence was the first instance of a female surviving the bite in the recorded history of their entire species; she knew she should have died.

How could he do that?

And what had happened to provoke him to it? How had Joanna killed him? What had happened to Fletcher's biological mother?

"What happened, darlin'?"

She cried silently into his shoulder, shaking, while he stroked her hair, his mind racing. Purged of the emotional turmoil she had been pushing down for months, she relaxed with a sigh in his arms, slowly disentangling herself from him, looking exhausted, her eyelashes spiky where tears had knitted them together, her shoulders were drooped and she looked unhappier than Clay had ever seen her, but oddly relieved. Clay sighed heavily, reaching up to cradle her face in his hands, gently forcing her to look him in the eye.

"I've done things I never imagined I was capable of doing," she mumbled, her lip trembling, her eyes sparkling, but she sniffed, and he wiped her tears away with his thumbs as she exhaled shakily.

"You're not in it alone anymore, darlin'," he promised, resting his forehead against hers.

"I hate that I've had to come here," she admitted on a hoarse whisper. "I know there's a lot we have to work out… Just…know that if it weren't for you, I'd never have come here. Because you're the…" She exhaled shakily, her eyes brimming with tears. She shook her head, wiping more tears away, and she sniffed, pulling herself together. She glanced at the baby, as he sighed in his sleep, his tiny fingers opening and closing like starfish, and Clay glanced from him to Joanna.

"No-one is going to take him away," he promised. "Ever."

She didn't answer, her dark eyes searching his face, not hopeless but tired. "Was it real?"

His heart stuttered, fracturing, as he stared at her, filled with shock and hurt. " _Always_."

Her eyes glinted, but she drew away, lifting the covers on the bed, and he stared at her in the dim golden lamplight. She didn't know if what they had had together was real?

Shocked, Clay drifted out of the bedroom, into the darkened hallway, and slipped downstairs in a daze. Only the soft voices of Jeremy and Antonio disturbed the quiet of the house, the fire crackling in the grate despite the lingering late-summer heat, sharing some whisky over an intense discussion. Frustration simmering in his veins, Clay diverted to the study rather than storm straight out into the woods. Jeremy's pale eyes were illuminated by the firelight and found his face immediately, lowering his tumbler.

"John Fletcher," he said tersely. "I know every Mutt in North America, why don't I know his name?"

Jeremy sighed softly. "John Fletcher was a Mutt, briefly, a very long time ago. When I became Alpha, we came to an arrangement."

Clay glowered. "An arrangement?"

"John would not refuse my calls; I would not call," Jeremy said quietly. He sighed softly.

"Who gets that kind of a free pass?" Clay growled softly. Jeremy's eyes lanced to his face, a warning.

"John's history with the Pack is a not a story anyone but his daughter has a right to hear," Jeremy said softly, and Clay narrowed his eyes, filled with misgiving. "Suffice it to say, nearly thirty years ago John came to irreparable odds with Dominic's way of running the Pack. But John never turned his back on his brothers; I'll dig his files out tomorrow, you should have a read through. With John dead, you may need to pick up the slack."

"The slack?"

"When I couldn't send you, John was already there," Jeremy said simply, and Clay stared at his adopted-father.

"Did you know about her?"

"Joanna? I'd no idea what John's daughter was called; we never met. John made it clear we were not welcome where his family was concerned."

"Kendall will be her mother's maiden-name," Antonio said softly, gazing into the distance as he idly swilled his whisky around the tumbler.

"So John Fletcher was another Enforcer," Clay guessed. There were some tasks, he knew, that Jeremy preferred not to entrust to Clay, simply because his preferred method of dealing with Mutts was like swinging a sledge-hammer. Some things required finesse, delicacy – _patience_. Clay was excellent at setting an example and extracting information, but sometimes that wasn't enough. Some things required…elegance.

"He was a collector," Jeremy said softly, shrugging a shoulder offhandedly, as if it didn't really matter. "He collated information."

"And he knew me."

"Clay, there's not a werewolf in this hemisphere who doesn't know and dread your name," Jeremy said, eyeing him carefully. "John knew what you do for the Pack."

"And he told Joanna."

Jeremy gave him a shrewd look. "Well, you'll have to ask Joanna that. She found out what you are, that is enough to be starting with."

"She knows werewolves take their newborn sons from their mothers," he said through gritted teeth, glaring at Jeremy, who gazed back, his features mild, almost bland, expressionless. "I'm going for a run." He had stripped off by the time he reached the front-door, leaving nothing but his boots and socks on the step.

If he came across a hunter tonight, they were fair game, consequences to the Pack be damned. And if he came across that Mutt…

He needed to run. Joanna, a werewolf, and her father, a secret Collector for the Pack? Dealing in information? To never have come into contact with Clay, never have Clay even catch wind of his _name_ … It was rare that Clay didn't know anything about a werewolf in North America. All he knew of John Fletcher was what he knew from him being Joanna's father – the werewolf John Fletcher was another man entirely.

The Clayton Danvers that Joanna had met six years ago, had fallen in love with, had fled, was a very different man from the Clayton Danvers who was Enforcer for the North American Alpha.

John Fletcher would have known that. Had he told his daughter just the kind of man she was engaged to marry? Contemplating having children with?

And what secret was Jeremy hiding about John Fletcher's past that he had never breathed a word of it to his Enforcer, never even mentioned the werewolf's name?

Jeremy trusted Clay with the protection of the family, the Pack as a whole – how could he have expected Clay to do his job when Clay had no knowledge of this ghost wolf?

What information had he been collating?

What had he told Joanna about Clay's reputation?

"Will you tell her?" Antonio asked Jeremy, long after the sound of Clay's large paws thudding on the sun-baked earth had faded into the wind.

"Knowing about werewolves and being one are two different things," Jeremy said quietly. "John would expect nothing less than our very best efforts to ensure Joanna's survival, and his son's. As their Pack brothers, we owe it to them… And after what happened…we owe it to him. These ones will survive."

* * *

 **A.N.** : Oooh, secrets! On a tangent, is anyone else interested in a _Grimm_ fanfiction, by the way? I'm working on an _Avengers_ one, but I recently got back into _Grimm_ and wonder about a gender-bent story, where Nick is Nicolette and she ends up with Meisner, who I adore. Talk about a scene-stealer!


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